Acer Aspire S5 is officially "world's thinnest ultrabook"

It didn’t take very long for a PC notebook manufacturer to unveil and introduce another “world’s thinnest” product to the market. We all knew it was coming. We all knew it would be announced at CES 2012. Now, we have the specific details.

Officially announced at Acer’s Global Press Conference at the Wynn Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada this afternoon, the Aspire S5 is now the world’s thinnest ultrabook, measuring in at a mere 15mm (0.59 inches) at its thickest point.

The device features a 13.3-inch LCD display with an aesthetically refined brushed metal lid that noticeably improves on its predecessor, the Aspire S3. More importantly, the device features a new third-generation Intel 22nm Ivy Bridge processor with significantly enhanced GPU performance, along with an SSD for storage and Dolby Home Theater audio.

During the press conference, Acer Chairman and CEO J.T. Wang said his company is committed to “continually evolving” the ultrabook technology. By the second quarter of 2012, he said Acer will have four ultrabook models available, including 14-inch and 15-inch Acer Timeline Ultra models. Of course, the devices are expected to have native support for Microsoft Windows 8 upon release.

Nevertheless, as with many “world’s first” products, the device is not entirely absent of minor design flaws. The keys are purported to have the same “scratchy” feel as the Aspire S3, they are very shallow in depth, and a handful of them remain somewhat undersized for most users. While Acer has noticeably improved the aesthetics of the device and obviously focused much of its engineering efforts on reducing the hardware profile to a mere 15mm, we believe that the product doesn’t quite differentiate itself enough from the slew of other Apple MacBook Air wannabes that have popped up over the past few hours on the CES 2012 show floor.

Acer has yet to reveal pricing on the Aspire A5, but the product will be available in Q2 2012.